Children's Rights in Football
We are passionate about the protection of children's fundamental rights in and through football.
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child underpins our work and we are often invited to speak in this country and overseas about our ground-breaking practice. You can read more about children's rights in the videos and documents below!
1. A brief video introduction to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child
2. Our introductory summary (pages 1 and 2) to children's rights
3. A brief video on child-led practice at Rovers.
4. Ask the kids video
5. Understanding and accommodating what kids want video
6. Kids speaking for themselves video
7. Let kids play their own game video
8. Let kids run their own teams video
9. Joint submission to Government Call for evidence on Integrity in Sport
10 .The Psychology of Performance Podcast, Dr. Debbie Sayers hosted by Dr. James Barraclough and Dr. Tom Mitchell, August 2025
11. Ellie Gennings, Emma Kavanagh, Alice Hunter & Ian Jones (13 Aug 2025): A critical examination of children’s well-being and well-becoming in a professional youth football academy, Sport in Society.
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child underpins our work and we are often invited to speak in this country and overseas about our ground-breaking practice. You can read more about children's rights in the videos and documents below!
1. A brief video introduction to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child
2. Our introductory summary (pages 1 and 2) to children's rights
3. A brief video on child-led practice at Rovers.
4. Ask the kids video
5. Understanding and accommodating what kids want video
6. Kids speaking for themselves video
7. Let kids play their own game video
8. Let kids run their own teams video
9. Joint submission to Government Call for evidence on Integrity in Sport
10 .The Psychology of Performance Podcast, Dr. Debbie Sayers hosted by Dr. James Barraclough and Dr. Tom Mitchell, August 2025
11. Ellie Gennings, Emma Kavanagh, Alice Hunter & Ian Jones (13 Aug 2025): A critical examination of children’s well-being and well-becoming in a professional youth football academy, Sport in Society.
Campaign for Children's Rights in Football
We are also founder members of the Campaign for Children's Rights in Football. The CCRF is wholly independent and impartial organisation. It is made up of individuals and groups committed to campaigning for and promoting the realisation of children’s rights (as set out in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child) in football internationally. You can read more about the CCRF here.
We are activists and we believe we all have a duty to empower young people and protect human rights. You'll find some examples of our campaign work below.
We are activists and we believe we all have a duty to empower young people and protect human rights. You'll find some examples of our campaign work below.
Raising children's rights with The FA in 2019
Following our efforts to engage with The FA in relation to the protection of children in our national game (read more here), we also released the attached document entitled 'the protection of children in football'.
We asked for an urgent investigation in to our youth game which has been commercialised and commodified. Children’s football is now too often confused with the expectations of the adult, or even the professional game, with training from toddler ages, adult objectives and agendas, and the trialling and selection at ever younger ages based on no evidence of benefit.
Children are talked at, or talked about as players in an adult game, but they have generally lost any genuine sense of ownership of their own game. Instead, play has been replaced by adult structure. Add to this commercialisation which inevitably introduces economic inequality into the process.
Without clear protections for the rights of children, and their right to be treated as children, they are exposed to potential harm /exploitation.
We think that action should be taken to protect children and their right to play. We believe there is no justification for delay.
We have spoken to leading figures who agree and some have put their name to this document. The document was shared with some senior political figures.
We asked for an urgent investigation in to our youth game which has been commercialised and commodified. Children’s football is now too often confused with the expectations of the adult, or even the professional game, with training from toddler ages, adult objectives and agendas, and the trialling and selection at ever younger ages based on no evidence of benefit.
Children are talked at, or talked about as players in an adult game, but they have generally lost any genuine sense of ownership of their own game. Instead, play has been replaced by adult structure. Add to this commercialisation which inevitably introduces economic inequality into the process.
Without clear protections for the rights of children, and their right to be treated as children, they are exposed to potential harm /exploitation.
We think that action should be taken to protect children and their right to play. We believe there is no justification for delay.
We have spoken to leading figures who agree and some have put their name to this document. The document was shared with some senior political figures.
A race to the bottom: removing age restrictions on academy training 2020
We took action after a report in Training Ground Guru, that new Premier League regulations removed the minimum age at which children can train with academies.
We have previously raised concerns about 'elite' teams of 5 year olds so a move to lift all age restrictions was deeply worrying, irrespective of any safeguarding or other rules put in place.
We have drafted a letter to be sent to the Premier League's CEO prior to their AGM in June 2020.
We urged all coaches, parents, welfare officers, writers, academics and institutions connected to children's sport to support the letter.
We have previously raised concerns about 'elite' teams of 5 year olds so a move to lift all age restrictions was deeply worrying, irrespective of any safeguarding or other rules put in place.
We have drafted a letter to be sent to the Premier League's CEO prior to their AGM in June 2020.
We urged all coaches, parents, welfare officers, writers, academics and institutions connected to children's sport to support the letter.
Raising Children's rights with The FA (again!) in 2021
In March 2021, following previous letters to The FA about protecting children in sport (here and here), and to the Premier League (here), we wrote to The FA to urge them to start embedding children's rights as part of all their operations and practices. The letter was signed by many people and can be read here. The FA has today (23 March 2021) agreed that we can release their response. It is set out in full below (with third party names and contact details redacted ).
"Dear Debbie,
Thank you for your correspondence raising the important issues of listening to children and children’s rights within football.
As we all know, the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic will have adversely affected children in many different ways. This includes limiting opportunities to access face to face learning and other extra-curricular activity, including access to open spaces to play in organised and non-organised activity and sport.
The FA recognises that sport, including football, plays a significant role in the lives of thousands of children. Football has a powerful role to play in supporting children to not only develop football skills, but also contribute to their overall physical, emotional and social development – forming friendships, developing skills and a passion for the game they love.
The FA has worked closely with the Dept. for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) to ensure Grassroots Football has been enabled to return as soon as possible in line with Government Covid-19 national and local restrictions. Over the last year we have recognised the challenges faced by football of re-commencing activity during the pandemic. We have provided clubs and leagues with new resources (including guidance and template safeguarding risk assessments) in addition to our existing safeguarding policies, procedures and guidance. This has supported clubs and teams to put measures in place to ensure that football is enabled to return safely, and that children’s needs are being appropriately considered.
We believe that providing opportunities to empower children to have a voice and for those voices to be heard is essential in keeping children safe within our sport. This year will see The FA develop a new Safeguarding strategy for football, within which Children’s Voices will be a core pillar. We are committed to ensuring that children are enabled to contribute to this development, and over the course of the next few months we will be planning how we will make this happen.
[Redacted name] who I believe you’re acquainted with, would be happy to arrange a convenient time to speak with you on this subject and consider further how we will seek to embed championing children’s rights into our strategy across the game.
[Redacted name] will be in touch with you in the coming weeks to arrange this.
Thank you for your continued championing of children’s rights and the fantastic work you do week in and week out, to support children in and through football locally.
Kind regards
Mark (Bullingham)"
There has been no further unilateral follow-up from The FA but we continue to pursue and ask questions to try and hold our Governing Body accountable. We note that Scotland has recently incorporated the UNCRC in to domestic law and we believe that the time is right to start understanding and implementing respect for rights across our game.
"Dear Debbie,
Thank you for your correspondence raising the important issues of listening to children and children’s rights within football.
As we all know, the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic will have adversely affected children in many different ways. This includes limiting opportunities to access face to face learning and other extra-curricular activity, including access to open spaces to play in organised and non-organised activity and sport.
The FA recognises that sport, including football, plays a significant role in the lives of thousands of children. Football has a powerful role to play in supporting children to not only develop football skills, but also contribute to their overall physical, emotional and social development – forming friendships, developing skills and a passion for the game they love.
The FA has worked closely with the Dept. for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) to ensure Grassroots Football has been enabled to return as soon as possible in line with Government Covid-19 national and local restrictions. Over the last year we have recognised the challenges faced by football of re-commencing activity during the pandemic. We have provided clubs and leagues with new resources (including guidance and template safeguarding risk assessments) in addition to our existing safeguarding policies, procedures and guidance. This has supported clubs and teams to put measures in place to ensure that football is enabled to return safely, and that children’s needs are being appropriately considered.
We believe that providing opportunities to empower children to have a voice and for those voices to be heard is essential in keeping children safe within our sport. This year will see The FA develop a new Safeguarding strategy for football, within which Children’s Voices will be a core pillar. We are committed to ensuring that children are enabled to contribute to this development, and over the course of the next few months we will be planning how we will make this happen.
[Redacted name] who I believe you’re acquainted with, would be happy to arrange a convenient time to speak with you on this subject and consider further how we will seek to embed championing children’s rights into our strategy across the game.
[Redacted name] will be in touch with you in the coming weeks to arrange this.
Thank you for your continued championing of children’s rights and the fantastic work you do week in and week out, to support children in and through football locally.
Kind regards
Mark (Bullingham)"
There has been no further unilateral follow-up from The FA but we continue to pursue and ask questions to try and hold our Governing Body accountable. We note that Scotland has recently incorporated the UNCRC in to domestic law and we believe that the time is right to start understanding and implementing respect for rights across our game.